ABSTRACT
The Philippine government has fought Moro separatists in western Mindanao since 1972. After earlier uprisings against colonial authorities, the March 1968 Jabidah massacre of Moro army recruits by Philippine soldiers ignited revived secessionism. Since 2019, MILF chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim has led a transitional government in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which will govern until the planned elections in 2025. However, several radical Islamist militant groups remain active and continue to fight for either an independent Moro homeland or a local caliphate. Despite laying siege to Marawi city in 2017 and conducting a string of bombings, these groups the Abu Sayyaf Group, the Maute Group and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters have been weakened by the army and are largely restricted to remote areas. Similar factors have fuelled a nationwide Maoist insurgency by the New People's Army in rural areas since 1969.
